Safe Speed Forums

Last Wednesday, I took my mother and stepfather on a tour of the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley, Surrey. As some of you know, this site is located on the north side of the A3, not very far southwest of the A3/M25 intersection. We had a lovely day out until the return car journey.

I'm attaching a Google Earth shot of the scene. As you can see, traffic exiting the RHS site comes onto a slip road whose length is designed to allow traffic to accelerate to the speed of traffic coming up the A3 from the south west. It was about 4pm, and there was a moderate amount of traffic travelling at around 55-60mph.

I got behind a numpty in a white Vauxhall Astra. Instead of accelerating, this car dawdled along the acceleration lane, then braked (nearside brake light not working) and then... stopped. Yes, stopped!!. I'm afraid I cursed this driver aloud, in front of my elderly relatives.

So there we were, in the now invidious position of having to merge with 60mph traffic from a standing start. The Astra's right indicator came on, and it pulled into the left lane of the A3 at a pace best described as pedestrian, making no effort to accelerate to the flow of traffic. There was a gap in the middle lane, and I floored it to get around the numpty, which turned out to be an Asian woman - full sari and all that. Now I realise it might be a bit non-PC to have mentioned that, but it has been in the news recently that a disproportionate percentage of accidents are being caused by foreign drivers/recent immigrants.

This sort of thing is my worst nightmare - a real brown trouser job. The same thing happened to me a few years ago joining the A34 from the A303 in Hampshire. Again, the culprit was a woman driver.

So much for "Speed kills, kill your speed".

Google Image of Wisley

Inappropriate differential speeds are dangerous too.


I was once passenger to someone who also thought it was a good idea to stop on the end of a slip road. Thankfully the van that hit us only caught the corner of the car instead of pushing us fully into the M25

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

If the driver ahead of me is good enough to indicate their intention early enough to trundle down the slip road, and if there's nothing behind me, I'll back right off and let enough of a gap open up so that I've then got the space to accelerate. If however they're a complete numpty who heads down the slip at a decent pace, only to THEN slow down at the merge, then... auto box into sport mode, indicate and wait for a suitable gap, then right foot to the floor and give the rev limiter something to do

Such drivers are equally frustrating when you're already on the main carriageway and you see them heading down the slip, matching your speed exactly and heading for the exact same patch of L1... There's traffic to your right and ahead, so nowhere to escape there. You ease off to open up a gap in front of you, but they slow down as well. You speed up to try getting them behind you and, you've guessed it, they speed up too. Eventually they get to the merge point and either pull straight in front of you (which you've fortunately been expecting from the moment you first noticed their antics), come to a complete halt and are still sat there until you lose sight of them in your mirrors, or (where available) take to the hard shoulder and use that as an extension of the slip road. It seems that some people take the idea of matching speeds with the main carriageway a bit too literally

_________________
Chris

It has been mentioned before, we need more emphasis on dual carriageway and motorway joining. Fast dual's such as the A2 and A303 (well they were fast the last time I travelled on them, they could be by now) would be sufficient without having to resort to motorways.

_________________
Prepare to be Judged

Drew this to the attention of a good friend of mine who works at Wisley, who responded:

The most terrifying thing of all is that numpty was probably never aware of the danger they created, and will go on doing the same thing untill the inevitable.

(Then they'll put a speed camera at the accident site to give drivers yet another distraction)

_________________
Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

The few times it has happened to me I've been fortunate enough to see it coming.

In which case I also stop, before the start of the sliproad, and usually wait until they are gone, if I get too impatient (only done this once) then I wait for a gap that I can make but previous observations of them show that they wont attempt, then I'll accelerate down the sliproad and merge normally.

And yes I think the Asian woman thing is a bit of a red herring too. All the times it's happened to me, it's been really really old men in cars of a similar age. The only bad encounters I've had with Asian women (apart from generic cellphone/SUV style inconsiderate driving that is certainly not unique to them) are ill advised lane changes from the ones in the full Islamic gear that prevents them from being able to look left and right

We have some spectacularly short slip-roads in Dorset. I've got used to leaving a large gap and being ready to stop if there's someone in front trying to get on to the main road. Most of they time the person in front won't try to increase speed at all. Occasionally there will be someone behind wondering what I'm doing, but I know I'm about to leave them standing in a few seconds so they don't worry me.

_________________
Andrew.

This is of course very worrying and dangerous. And it's made even worse when on-slips are reduced from 2 lanes to 1.

Those of us who have been driving for 20 years or more: have you noticed an increase in this kind of behaviour since the "speed kills" dogma started?

_________________
Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

A31 Ringwood slip heading west...?

About here? Yeah, that sort of thing. That's the one with the hypnotic cats eyes, isn't it?

Although I thought that was in Hampshire... But never mind

There's this one on the Dorset Way too. (the one on the south side of the road)
It actually looks longer than it is because it gets very very thin. It is only just wide enough for a car at the start.

Then there's this one on the Wessex Way. (north side of road) And there's another like it further east. Very short and due to the high wall you can't see anything until the point at which you should already be up to speed ready to merge!

_________________
Andrew.

Like it! Made my day reading that

Oh, of course, I thought you wrote "Into Dorset

A big chunk of the A2 is 50 now. And most of the bit that isn't has roadworks with a temporary 50.

_________________
www.misspelled-signs.com - A tribute to illiterate signwriters.

I can't understand why when it's the main route to London for anyone living in North Kent

_________________
Prepare to be Judged

Sgt Reed Iculous of the Surrey Camera Parternership commented, "these problems are caused by traffic travelling at high speed on the main carriageway. What we need is for the speed limit to be lowered to 30 mph through all junctions on the trunk road network, to protect the lives of drivers and their passengers".